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Archive for the ‘Can God Count On You’ Category

Genesis 6:5-8 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.

We Christians are often not that affected by witnessing wickedness and being mistreated by the unsaved. We are usually able to remind ourselves that these people are acting as expected, and that we should just count it all for joy, pray for their salvation and deliverance, and move on. But when it is people close to us, especially family members, professed Christians, and very religious people who act without love or regard for the will of God towards us, sometimes that is very hard to take. For some of us it really tries our faith. For others, it causes us to turn our faith inward; to forget about the spiritual needs of others and just make sure that we get to Heaven ourselves.

This happens because we forget that while our families have been given to us, while the church exists, and while even the genuine Body of Christ exists, our relationship of God is not a function of those things whatsoever, and we should not put any faith in those whatsoever. Instead, we should trust and put our faith in God only. It is only God who will never leave us, never forsake us, never betray us, never let us down. Everyone else will face temptation and potentially fall. If you put your faith in something that is fallible, when it fails you fail with it. But if you put your faith in something that stands, you will stand even though all else falls around you.That is the meaning of Psalm 91:5-7 – “Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.” It does not say “your family.” It does not say “the church.” It does not say “the denomination.” It does not say “You and the pastor.” It does not say “you and your best, closest, most trusted friends.” It does not say “you and your role model.” It says YOU! If you trust in God, though the whole world should pass away, you will stand. Though your foes rise up against you, your enemies surround you, your friends abandon you, and your family betrays you, and your very body gives out, you will stand. Though your whole world not only seems to be turning upside down but ending, you will stand. Though things may get so bad that you wonder why even so much as living is worthwhile, you will stand! A great example of how Christians should stand under trials is given in the Rudyard Kipling in the poem to his son, If. Only if our faith is in God and not in the things of this world, including ourselves, can we be the ones that God counts on.

And why is this important? If everyone else turns to sin, why must we maintain our integrity before God and men? At the very least, why cannot we turn inward? The reason is simple: we have a job to do. And if everyone else in your family, your church congregation, or the entire Body of Christ suffers a temporary falling away from God’s will, there will still be a job yet to be done! So if you are the one person left standing, you are going to have to do it. Of course, you cannot do it yourself. You cannot take the weight. You are not God. You are a person! That is why you are going to still need to be obedient. You are going to still need to be patient. You are still going to need submission, love, charity, and courage. And you are going to still need your faith. As a matter of fact, you are going to need those things more than ever before if you are to stand up and do what God requires of you.

That is why Noah was chosen as the above example. The whole world was exceedingly wicked. Had Noah seen this wickedness about him, lost his faith, and join in the abomination, the human race would have been destroyed, and God would have had to start over from scratch. But that did not happen because God had a man on the ground that he could count on, a man on the ground that He could depend on when even Adam let God down. Sure, Noah had his faults. He got drunk and cursed his own son Ham. But the fact that he stood when God wanted him to when all else failed to allowed God to save him, his family, and recreate the entire human race through him. The point is not had Noah failed could God have found another way. Of course He could have. The point is that because Noah did not fail, because he stood when all around him was wicked, even yet while he was toiling on the ark while everyone was mocking him, God did not have to. Noah’s stand was notable not so much that he saved himself, but that he saved the human race. He stood not for himself but for God to use him, and he stood in that manner because he believed not in his fellow humans, not in his family, not in himself, not in his surroundings, not in the things which he had seen or knew, but in God.

Noah is not the only one. Jesus Christ also stood after being betrayed by one of the twelve, abandoned by the rest of His disciples, and even God turned away his face temporarily when Jesus took on the sin and corruption of all mankind. Yet Christ stood, refused to defend Himself even before Pilate, went to the cross, and even to hell. As defeated and alone He seemed at the time, He was still more than a conqueror with all the help that He needed, because God was still with Him. God was still with Him because He still had His faith. He still was obedient. He still had the Word. So just like Noah, he got the job done. And then there was Joseph. All alone in Egypt, his parents thought he was dead, his brothers betrayed him, made a slave, lied on by Potiphar’s wife, turned on by Potiphar after all that he had done for him, and cast into prison. But Joseph kept his faith in God. He held onto his dream. He could have given up and allowed himself to be killed at any time. But he stood, and God used him to raise up the nation of Israel out of which Jesus would come and save the world. And yes, God used him to save the brothers that betrayed him.

And that is another key point. When the church is under attack, someone has to stand. When the Body of Christ is under attack, someone has to stand. When the family is being scattered, someone has to stand. Someone has to remain in a position where God can use them in order to help set things right. Someone has to hold fiery serpent up so that the bitten people can look up at it and be healed like Moses did. The children of Israel weren’t looking at Moses, they were looking at the fiery serpent in which was the power of God! So it won’t be by your actions that people will be healed, delivered, saved, even set back on the right path and restored from whence they fell like Peter after he denied Jesus. It will be by the power of God. But if you do not remain faithful, who will God’s power work through? Of course, it will get done anyway, for God’s will shall be done. But why even let it come to that? Why cannot you stand? Why cannot you be the man on the ground and let God work through you? Now you cannot go to the cross, but you can build the ark. You can lead your family out of Sodom and Gomorrah. You can interpret pharoah’s dream and run all Egypt for seven years!You can do these things for it will not be you doing them, but God doing them through you. God only wants a vessel to work through, and there is no reason on earth why it cannot be you.

Never be afraid to stand apart from other men while you stand for God. For if you stand with everyone else and everyone is wrong, who will stand for God? And if everyone is deceived, who will be left to lead you and everyone else out of the wilderness? Rather than take the chance that there will always be someone around to lead you out of the darkness, is it not far better to be at least that one person who stays out of the darkness and is available to lead others out? I know that it sounds like a hard existence; one that will not make you the life of the party. As a matter of fact, you may even be invited to the party. But if the result is your being the one man who can run to the party and scream (from the outside of course) “Get out of that house before it burns down!” and therefore allow God to use you to deliver some of the saints, will it not be worth it? After all, Jesus Christ did say take the hard way, and not the easy way. Do not be mistaken, God told all his people through Adam that the way was going to be hard and not easy when He cast Adam out of the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3:17-19. The episode from children’s series “Greatest Heroes And Legends Of The Bible” featuring Adam and Eve explained it best … that Scripture was not merely referring to how hard Adam (and hence man) would have to work in order to sustain himself, but how hard man would have to work to maintain his relationship with God, to do God’s will. Even Jesus Christ had to work extremely hard, with all the traveling, preaching, miracles, fasting, and prayer, and that does not include his trip to the cross.

It may be very distasteful, even hurtful and seemingly unfair, for you to have to stand up and fight on the behalf of all the people who hurt you and let you down. But remember … Jesus Christ did it for you when He died for you on the cross. So show Christ that you appreciate what He did for you by standing so God can use you to help someone else, even someone else that hurt you, today. It can be a brother or sister, it can be a child, it can be a former or current spouse, it can be a pastor or church, it can be a best friend, it can be all of them combined. Put aside your hurt, pain, resentment, and fear, invest all your faith in God, and allow God to work through you to help all those who will be helped. Who knows: God may use you to restore them back again, as God worked through Jesus Christ to reclaim the disciples, even Peter and doubting Thomas. And wouldn’t that be grand? When we all get to Heaven, all that you went through will be just one more thing to laugh and shout about.

Prayer:Father God in the name of Christ Jesus, please help me to put my trust in you, and not in man, so that if everyone else falls or turns against you I will yet stand, not only for my own salvation but so that you may use me to help those who have fallen. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen!

Deliverance:The demons that work in this area are idolatry – which causes man to put his trust in things other than God – and bitterness and resentment against those who hurt you. There are also demons that cause you to think that you cannot stand alone, that you need the support of others to validate your actions. Those demons attack your self – esteem and confidence. Demons also attack your faith and doctrine to make you think that if everyone else goes one way and you go another, then you obviously are not following God. You must learn to always hear and trust the Holy Spirit within you regardless of what anyone else, even other Christians, do. There will be times when you will have to guide and deliver all others who will follow you while you are following God, but if you follow the others you all will perish together. Please read the Basic Spiritual Warfare guide to learn more about how to go against these demons to help set captives free and win battles in the name of your God through the power, authority, and victory given to you by his Son Jesus Christ and by his blood shed for you!